


The End.

by AgentCoop



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ash Lynx Lives, Dreams and Nightmares, Falling In Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/pseuds/AgentCoop
Summary: Ash lives.Here's what happens next.
Relationships: (past), Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Max Lobo/Ash Lynx
Comments: 26
Kudos: 44





	The End.

**Author's Note:**

> All my love to Salmon who's absolutely stunning artwork inspired this: https://twitter.com/sushisalmon95/status/1275445894863699968?s=21

Eiji leaves.

Ash gets stabbed, Eiji leaves, Ash wakes up in a hospital with no one there but Max, Eiji leaves.

Eiji _leaves_.

It’s better that way.

It’s what Ash wanted, it’s what Eiji needed, it’s better, but it still burns. It’s still a fresh enough wound that sometimes when he opens his mouth to speak, nothing comes out–there is only an awful, stuttering feeling of not being able to pull in enough breath.

Ash is pardoned.

He stands trial, he confesses his sins, he gives names and dates and times and places.

Max watches.

Ash is pardoned, Eiji is gone, Max is not, neither of them are more important than the other but one day in the quiet of Ash’s apartment Max reaches out a hand, brushes a finger against Ash’s cheek and they kiss.

It’s not more than what Eiji was.

It’s just different.

***

Ash cuts his hair in the bathroom of his apartment while Max leans against the doorframe watching.

“Help?” he offers.

“Naa,” Ash says. There are golden locks all around the outline of his bare feet and he should have put a towel down first. Hair is hell to get out of grout. “Don’t you have an article due?” he asks, pulling more hair down in front of his face and eyeballing it as the scissors cut everything away.

“At midnight.”

“So in six hours.”

“Writing loses its flavor if you don’t give it a little time to air.”

“Which one of the greats said that one, old man? Socrates? Aristotle?”

“Procrastines, I think.”

Ash watches Max in the mirror, sees the little quirk of smile at his lips. Max thinks he’s clever. It’s the stupidest joke Ash has heard in a long time, but he smiles too.

The scissors keep making that _snick, snick, snick_ sound near Ash’s head and at one point he looks up and realizes that one side is shorter than the other, and there’s still long hair curling at the base of his neck, and for all that this was supposed to be a freeing moment, he’s still managed to fuck it up.

“Help?” Max offers again.

Sighing, Ash holds the scissors out.

“You can hack a mean offshore account and steal millions, but you’re shit at cutting hair,” Max says with a grin, going to work at the back of Ash’s neck.

His fingers brush the curve of Ash’s neck and Ash shivers, looking up to the mirror.

Max is staring back at him with bright blue eyes.

“I’ll make a note of it,” Ash mutters, then closes his eyes and smiles as Max fixes all of his mistakes.

***

At night, he dreams.

Sometimes, it’s Eiji. They’re holding hands, they’re sitting on the staircase of the library. Ash brushes his fingers against the marble steps and Eiji leans against the tall stone lion and Ash tells him a story of how their names are Patience and Fortitude because those are the qualities that New Yorkers should have.

He doesn’t think that Patience and Fortitude are qualities he has.

He thinks that he’s a murderer, and murderers deserve no happy epilogues.

Sometimes, it’s Dino. There’s a meaty forearm at his neck, and Ash isn’t allowed to cry he’s only allowed to moan, and the slap of skin on skin on skin makes him so sick he can barely breathe.

He doesn’t deserve this because no one deserves this.

That doesn’t matter. There is a story that begins with _Once Upon a Time_ and there is a story that begins with _Long Ago_ , and there is a story that begins with _Once There Was a_ and Ash is none of those.

He’s a lost boy who became a lost man who doesn’t know which way is up and which way is a grave.

Ash isn’t allowed to cry.

Sometimes, it’s Max. Max is warm, and Max is solid. Max doesn’t expect anything out of Ash, and Ash doesn’t have to protect him. Sometimes they kiss, and sometimes Max wraps his arms around Ash and sometimes Ash melts and sometimes he does not.

He’s not whole, but he’s not entirely broken.

He thinks that maybe this is what it means to be found.

He thinks that maybe this is what it means to be happy.

***

In the waning moonlight of Ash’s bedroom, they lie curled, watching each other breathe. Ash reaches out first, thumb brushing over the shell of Max’s ear then drifting lower, down the curve of his neck, to the round of his arm, all the way to the small bumps of his fingers.

“I love you,” Ash murmurs, sound swallowed up by the air conditioner kicking on.

Max blinks. His hand is on Ash’s hip–fingers splayed, palm warm, warm, warm.

He doesn’t move.

Ash does.

Ash scoots closer, watches the way Max’s eyes track his every movement. His nose brushes against Max’s nose, his lips brush against Max’s lips.

It’s quiet. Max let’s him lead.

It’s nothing more, and nothing less, and somehow everything at once.

That night, Ash dreams of dark things that coil and wrap around him so tightly he wakes up unable to breathe.

Max presses two hands against the sides of Ash’s head.

Looks him in the eyes.

Tells him to breathe.

Tells him it’s okay to cry.

***

Eiji calls.

They talk about jobs and gunshot wounds and trauma and weather in Japan and weather in New York.

They talk about Max.

Eiji doesn’t mind. He’s warm over the phone, and Ash can see his open face and beautiful sparkling eyes. He’s sad, but he doesn’t mind.

They talk about pictures.

They talk about flying.

Sometimes Max is there, sitting in the armchair that Ash bought out of a catalogue of expensive things, sipping a glass of whiskey. He’s reading and typing and working and his glasses fall further and further down his nose the more he’s concentrating.

Sometimes Eiji is speaking, and Ash does nothing more than listen while he watches Max.

***

They age.

Sing marries Shunichi’s niece and everyone comes to New York.

Ash hugs Eiji again and it feels like it did forever ago.

Eiji hugs back.

There’s a ring on Ash’s finger that Max put there, and Eiji smiles as soon as he sees it, face lighting up, brown eyes full of love.

“I am so happy you are happy,” he says.

Ash hugs Eiji harder.   
  


They age.

Eiji never marries, but he visits New York. He is a photographer who is featured in one gallery and then another and then another.

His work is beautiful.

Twice, Ash goes to his gallery opening.

Twice Ash cries.

They age.

Max and Ash marry. They buy a townhouse on the Upper East Side and Max writes and Ash writes and at night they sit together on a couch that costs too much money. Max’s arm wraps around Ash. Ash leans his head against the curve of Max’s neck.

They age.

It’s more than Ash thought he deserved.

It’s different than Ash imagined.

It’s worth it.


End file.
